Too fat to fight

This came through my alumni email today.

Edit: Forgot to include the link: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/web/page/normal/17636.html

Current health trends in recruits show a lower health status in draft-eligible soldiers than ever before. Twenty percent to 25 percent of new recruits entering the Army have a Body Mass Index, or BMI, of 25-30, meaning they are considered overweight. There is a general lack of aerobic and muscular endurance. Poor nutrition has led to two physical conditions for new recruits: low bone density and poor dental hygiene. Low bone density has increased dramatically since 1990, resulting in an increase in injuries like stress fractures. Last year, 62 percent of soldiers in the Army's basic training required significant dental care before being eligible for service. Hertling believes both low bone density and poor dental hygiene can be attributed to an increase in consumption of unhealthy substance like soft drinks instead of calcium-rich milk.

We're too fat to fight for our nation. The army now has a fat camp in SC that soldiers who can't pass basic go to before trying again.

Don't tax our soda's and juice drinks but.. We'll spend millions on a special fat camp for soldiers... Seems like false economy to me.

Self Floundering aside, this is a sad commentary on our nation. Is it also a sad commentary on "personal responsibility" in this nation. Here is a serious question. The army has proven that we as a nation are getting fat and lazy, but yet we want less regulation on what we eat and want to spend less on physical education. States now pay for gastric bypass surgery, because people are so obese it is proven that it costs less to give them a gastric bypass, then care for their medical issues in the future.

So.. The question. When do we start putting in that ounce of cure instead of always going for the pound of cure? Also what is that pound of cure? More phsyical education? More legislation to get kids outside and eating healthier? If, we don't want that regulation(latest election in mind), then what do we do?

I wonder how much the new Camouflage spandex uniform contract will go for.

Robots? We'll develop robots, so we can fight from our La-z-boy's.

Hover Chairs.

Ignorant wrote: Robots? We'll develop robots, so we can fight from our La-z-boy's.

Sounds good to me, every time I had to face and shoot at "the enemy" I felt really bad about it for a while.

If you HAVE to kill other humans, leave me out of it and get a robot to do it on my behalf.

thanks

I think if we just changed health insurance so that you pay according to your risk (obviously adjusted for seniors some how).

So that me, a healthy 29 year old male, doesn't pay the same premium as the 40 year old male in the next cubicle who is severly overweight with chronic heart and diabetes problems.

But then, they'd probably come after my booze next.....

We ignore it. Like every other thing that would require us to make a change in life style.

Ignorant wrote: We're too fat to fight for our nation. The army now has a fat camp in SC that soldiers who can't pass basic go to before trying again.

And the Air Force has AWACS squadrons! Hiyooo!

I am overweight, it sucks, I am trying to change it. But I view it as my responsibility to change it. I have already eliminated the soda from my diet, and not because the government taxed it or banned it, but because I understand the extreme excess of sugar I was putting into my body.

Say in the upcoming months, I achieve my weight loss goals and have a healthy lifestyle and want to treat myself to a nice soda, but come to find out the government has banned/taxed it, why should I have to pay because the other fat asses in the country didn't have my self control or personal responsibility.

Since we don't have a draft, it could just be that the people who are choosing to go into the Army are from a background that is more likely to have those issues.

the gubmint ain't gonna tax it to get you to stop drinking it. they're gonna tax it to make a buck off your fat ass before you die.*

*i mean that as the collective "you" of sugared soda drinkers, and not at any particular person who has posted in this thread.

Who's we?

It's probably because everybody quit smoking. Everybody knows you gain weight when you quit smoking.

The only part I disagree with is "calcium-rich milk". I think the number of lactose-tolerant people in the US are actually the minority, and the actual uptake of calcium from at least cow's milk is incredibly low. You get more calcium in you body from a serving of broccoli.

Brett_Murphy wrote: Since we don't have a draft, it could just be that the people who are choosing to go into the Army are from a background that is more likely to have those issues.

In years gone by these people who were too fat would not be admitted into the armed services. Now we are in such a need for troops and the average recruit quality has declined..

Tom Heath wrote: Who's we? It's probably because everybody quit smoking. Everybody knows you gain weight when you quit smoking.

The nation... The problem of obesity is no longer just a health problem.. It's a national defense problem and a cost problem.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12836

The link above is an article that makes the case that it is cheaper to let people do as they please. Fat folks and smokers die sooner and require less spending. I don't know if I believe that, but it is worth considering.

I can tell you this: The whole world will fear our new, fat, homosexual army!

1988RedT2 wrote: I can tell you this: The whole world will fear our new, fat, homosexual army!

hahaha

all I got to say, is only in America....yay....facepalm

According to Hollywood - they were always pretty well fed.

In reply to Ignorant:

Respectfully disagree. I'd be a fool to pretend we aren't fattening up as a nation, but I don't think that problem is quite what the article is pointing to. Do you think that the Iraqi army give a flying fig about dental hygiene? Our standards are pretty high.

Also, the standard of BMI can be deceptive. I knew a lot of guys in the Marines that were thick with muscle, but 240 pounds in a 5' 8" frame sounds like a fatbody when you see it on a chart.

I apologize in advance for this cheapshot, but I can't help myself.

Otto Maddox wrote:

"How ya doin', Joker?"

Yet there is this. I don't get it.

Soldiers are dangerously starving themselves, gobbling diet pills and laxatives — even going under the knife in costly liposuction surgery — all to meet the Army’s weight standards and avoid losing their careers.

Tom Heath wrote: Also, the standard of BMI can be deceptive. I knew a lot of guys in the Marines that were thick with muscle, but 240 pounds in a 5' 8" frame sounds like a fatbody when you see it on a chart.

I absolutely agree that BMI is effectively worthless. I'm considered border line obese @ 210 lbs and 6'1". Hell I was still in the overweight area when I was 11% bodyfat and starting bodybuilder.

If this is not a cost issue, then why do we have the army considering opening up a fat camp. They currently have FTU.

2 years ago there were those articles all over the news about some army fat camp http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28617833/ns/us_news-military/

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20015281-10391704.html

http://armygirlarmywife.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/fat-american-kids-fat-recruits-fat-soldiers/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/15/AR2010061502306.html

I see this as a serious issue. Sure it's an individual rights issue, but....

Ya know... people were a lot thinner in general when there was plenty of hard labor and not enough to eat.

--Captain Obvious